


If you're gonna shoot me down, do it gently

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Masters of Sex
Genre: Episode Tag, F/F, Mentions of Cancer, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2503271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you think we managed to board the precise same faulty vehicle?"</p><p>-</p><p>Lillian and Virginia, after "Phallic Victories"</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you're gonna shoot me down, do it gently

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/gifts).



> Three billion thank yous to majesdane.

Lillian is only just beginning to settle into something like sleep when the bus makes a long hiss followed by a series of hiccups and finally what sounds like the simultaneous screaming of a young child and gears slamming together. She jerks upright and braces herself on the nearest steadying object, which happens to be Virginia's hand. 

For what it's worth, Virginia is ready with a small squeeze rather than mockery. It is a small comfort. 

"Unbelievable," Virginia mutters, gesturing with her free hand, encompassing, Lillian supposes, the entirety of space and time. 

The bus is now well and truly stopped, and where its benign whirrs and rumbles filled the background, the small population now fills the relative silence with whispers, shouts, and grumbles. "Ladies n'gents, m'sorry t'say, but it don't look like we're gettin' anywhere else t'night. Please allow a few minutes while I radio base and see about gettin' y'all a place to stay until another vehicle can be comission'd."

"Do you think we managed to board the precise same faulty vehicle?" Virginia pulls Lillian's hand into her lap where their hands lay atop Virginia's pocketbook. The position is uncomfortable, but Lillian's been in worse. "What are the odds, do you think?"

Lillian sighs, unable to stop a small roll of her eyes at Virginia's put-on dramatics. "I think, perhaps, the odds are that we should have used that $7." She smiles, but knows it looks tired and even forced. She's never been good at being cheery on demand, not like Virginia who seems to roll out of bed with several faces at her disposal and just the right one in hand whatever the situation may be. Lillian, if she had them, would only ever grab the wrong face and have trouble putting it on, besides. "You were right, of course."

"Well, I am the assistant of a _brilliant_ doctor."

If Lillian had been a man, she would swear Virginia was flirting. It isn't the first time, either. She finds the feeling deeply unsettling, down to her core. Beyond any sort of simpering or… bending in ways that exaggerate body parts, this sort of throw-away line _is_ what Lillian understands flirting to be, not that she can imagine Virginia doing those other things to begin with. Even with a man.

"In that case, I believe I would be the correct one, and you the one assuring my correctness."

Virginia perks up, tossing her shoulders back. "Yes, of course, Doctor DePaul," she says, grinning.

*

The delay means another night at a motel, and a phone call home. "Go on and get settled," Virginia says. "I'll just be a moment." She lifts the receiver and dials like a woman who has dialed hundreds of phones and always gotten the answer she was seeking.

Lillian takes the walk past numbered doors slowly, realizing that the quiet, night air is in some way, a luxury. This time, too, they aren't fighting to make a deadline. There are Virginia's kids, of course, but they, like most humans, will keep another day. Number 26. Lillian fiddles with the key and steps into a sparse room, lit temporarily by the streetlights through the doorway. The bed has seen better days, but the overhead lighting feels oddly clean after the hours they've spent in shadows on oddly-stuffed bus seats. There isn't much to settle, but Lillian makes a show of setting her bag on the single chair, sitting on the bed, and toeing off her shoes. 

She's staring, _knows_ she's staring, off into nothing, just taking a moment to process the past two days. Lillian feels a pain she knows is psychosomatic, as if the Cancer knows it has been talked about, as if speaking its name has woken it up. 

She's going to die. Hope has run so against her life that it is strange to feel now, almost like that little psychosomatic twinge. She's going to die, but maybe it won't be for nothing, having done nothing.

The door opens, letting in a rush of street sounds and Virginia, breathy and pink-cheeked. She is beautiful: a fact. "Now," Virginia announces, as if continuing some long sentence, "I think a long, hot bath is in order." She leans against the door, smiling, a brief pause in the perpetual motion that is Virginia, before setting to drop her bag next to Lillian's, remove her own shoes and perch expectantly on the bed just beside her boss. Before Lillian can even think to protest, Virginia's hands are at her throat, fingers twisting, working the top button of Lillian's suit. 

Lillian stutters into a startled laugh. A laugh that blooms and erupts, turning into something wonderful and truly _happy_ when Virginia smiles, confused yet pleased, her deft hands stilling on Lillian's shoulders. "What," Lillian manages, "are you _doing_?" This is ridiculous. This trip is ridiculous. Hell, Lillian's entire life is one ridiculous (ly boring) mess after another.

"You're tired, Lillian. You should have a bath. Truly." Without waiting for approval, Virginia returns to the task at hand, her eyes tracking the progress of her fingers, and utterly stunned, Lillian watches the occasional flutter of her eyelids, the way Virginia's forehead smooths up into hairline. It's… easy to watch Virginia like this, easy to let her take charge. 

Virginia's knuckles graze Lillian's breasts and the illusion is gone. Lillian grabs Virginia's hands and scoots away, shaking her head. "You're being ridiculous, Virginia." _This is ridiculous._ "I'm nothing if not a grown woman who is more than capable of doing this herself."

Unphased, Virginia reaches for Lillian's hair, plucking a pin free. "And I think you've done that for a very long time, Lillian." She collects another pin, cupping them in her hand. With every word, with every pin, Lillian loses the urge to fight. "I think someone should take care of you, occasionally."

"And that person is you?" Lillian asks weakly. Virginia is weaving her fingers through Lillian's hair, tugging it gently down. It is so late. Lillian can feel her eyelids drooping. 

Virginia smiles, pleased with the results of her teasing. Perhaps taking advantage of Lillian's renewed exhaustion, she quickly resumes undoing buttons, and soon is pulling the fabric over Lillian's shoulders, helping her to shrug out of the top. Virginia is impossibly gentle, almost ghost-like, barely grazing the freckled skin of Lillian's arms. Her gaze is something more than strictly clinical, but less than flirtatious, less than sexual.

Lillian cannot see desire, not here between two women, two women working for something just out of reach, but she does see kindness, at least the way Virginia manifests kindness. It is an _intimate_ kindness. A sort of sisterly kindness, Lillian thinks. Imagines, briefly, the two of them in some other life, curled together in bed, whispering about all the boys Virginia has kissed. (Virginia teasing, "I could show you." Virginia reaching across the small distance and touching Lillian's mouth, this same _kindness_ in her eyes.)

No. Blush makes Lillian's freckles stand out like a disease. She is up and turned away before registering the desire to do so. In her brassiere and skirt, Lillian feels stripped bare. "I can do the rest," she says, and disappears into the bathroom like the coward she is.

*

The bath goes from warm to chilled far too quickly and Lillian is left pink-skinned and bath-robed with no where else to go but bed. She opens the door as quietly as possible, thinking she might pass unnoticed if she is only quiet enough. There, luck on her side for once: Virginia is asleep. 

Luck. Ridiculous.

She has wrapped a sheet around herself, then tucked herself neatly in to one side of the duvet, the other side turned neatly down, all ready for Lillian. Underneath, she is naked. A supposition quickly confirmed by the neat pile of clothing by their bags. For a man, this would be some sort of invitation. A tease. Perhaps Virginia had laid this way exactly, waited for the touch of some undeserving fellow on her shoulder, waiting to turn over and smile. 

But Lillian is not a man.

*

The morning comes early and unsettling, Lillian jerking awake to Virginia's fingers on her neck, cooing next to her ear. "You poor thing. I saved a space for you."

"I couldn't disturb you," Lillian says, the words sounding strange on her sleep-thick tongue. 

"We've two hours, yet. Come," Virginia says, her voice somehow crisp and clear as a bell. She's still only wearing a sheet. Entirely without shame, or guile. "I'll tuck you in properly."

"Ah, yes. You're taking care of me."

"You'll find me unrelenting, I think." 

"Utterly." Perhaps it is the morning fog, but Lillian finds herself smiling.


End file.
